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Title VII Reports

A longstanding objective of U.S. trade policy has been to open opportunities for U.S. suppliers to compete on a level playing field for foreign government contracts.

The first major breakthrough in this area was the 1979 conclusion of the Government Procurement Agreement (GPA), followed by the tenfold expansion of that Agreement during the Uruguay Round negotiations that led to the creation of the World Trade Organization (WTO).

The WTO estimates that, under the GPA, the United States and the 26 other GPA Parties provide their suppliers with non-discriminatory access to government tendering procedures worth more that $300 billion annually.

The "Title VII" process, initially established under Title VII of the Omnibus Trade and Competitiveness Act of 1988 ("Title VII"), as amended, provides a vehicle for identifying priorities for international negotiations that may address discriminatory foreign government procurement practices and for monitoring and enforcing existing international agreements.